Thursday, October 21, 2004

OBAMA DISCUSSES SUPREME COURT NOMINEES

Barack Obama will be interviewed on CNN's television special, "Off Topic With Carlos Watson," airing Sunday, 9 pm. In this column by Watson, Obama discusses his views on potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees:

"I teach constitutional law, [and] I'm getting to the age now that I actually know some of the people that they are appointing to these courts, " Obama said. "If they didn't go to school with me, they might have taught me ... and I've got strong opinions about the need to have justices who respect civil rights and civil liberties.

"I don't have a litmus test, but I do expect that there's a core of constitutional values that are going to be upheld in these next series of appointments, and I suspect that I will have something to say about who's going to shape the legal landscape for the next 40, 50 years."

Asked to name which justices would be good models for the type of people he would want to see working with the next administration, Obama said, "Well, obviously, it depends on if John Kerry is president or if George Bush is president. I think that if John Kerry is president then there's a wider range of justices [whom] I think could do a good job.

"I've always felt that someone like [the late Supreme Court Justice] William Brennan, who [was] a real liberal champion for the courts, was one of our greatest jurists, " he said. "But I also respect ... more conservative jurists ... people like [the late Supreme Court Justice] Felix Frankfurter and others who understood the important role of limiting the court's reach and [were] respectful of the other branches of government. So, you know, I don't have a single line that judges have to toe, but if I get a sense that somebody is being appointed just for ideological reasons as opposed to the quality of their thoughts, then I might have some significant objections."